Abattoir (2016) Reviews

• Style over substance

  Saiph902017-08-13

  Some interesting concepts, make the female character dress in 50's style drive a 50's car but have a smartphone on her dashboard, make the dialogue clipped 50's detective in delivery. The story should be good a demonic man collecting the rooms where horrific murders took place and assemble them in the town of New English as a portal to hell. We have a lot of ingredients to make a great film, unfortunately it fails, the plot is overly confusing, the dialogue is awful, there is absolutely no chemistry between the two lead characters and the end is depressingly predictable. I have given a 4 for the concept and at times the cinematography is excellent, shame this is really style over substance.

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• Slow, tedious, depressingly predictable...

  bushtony2016-09-14

  Without giving too much away, the writers and director might have thought they were being really smart and subversive. But I'm afraid they weren't. They were just being predictable. A third of the way in there is a huge signpost on the subject of how to defeat evil in the context of the film. A murderer tells the main female protagonist that you knock a hole in a prison to let the prisoners out. He says this more than once. The female protagonist is a wannabe investigative journalist. Maybe the reason why her boss keeps her confined to writing a column on real estate becomes clear in the end. She has all the insight of a house brick. The "evil triumphs" motif in 90-99% of most modern horror films is such a stale and predictable cliché. So much so that despite almost all, it no longer shocks and disturbs as it is so routinely expected by audiences. It's not a twist any longer. It just elicits a resigned shrug. This is a silly drag of a film that does little to exploit it's inventive premise. Is it too much to expect that the main characters make some effort to win these days - rather than just resign themselves to being submissive, unintelligent pawns? People root for characters who actually try to put up a fight. The neutral and banal don't usually get much audience engagement or sympathy. Especially when they behave like thoughtless ciphers. On the plus side, there are some decent production values and some FX reminiscent of those from a Disney theme park. But unfortunately for the most part it's safe, non-scary and reluctant to be visually explicit - or even properly suggestive - when it comes to carnage and mayhem. On top of that, the story unfolds in a laborious by-the-numbers fashion and unfortunately fails to excite. You may want to give it a miss.

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• Odd Movie Based On Comics.

  lizhalexander2017-04-18

  This wasn't the worst horror flick I've ever seen, but much like other reviewers, I felt that the end lacked a great deal of explanation. It had a lot of great ideas, but the way they were presented were confusing, and would likely require a re-watch to fully understand. For a lot of the movie, I was completely confused as to what time period it was supposed to be set in. It was addressed (sort of) in the beginning that the main character's flare for the "old timey" was endearing for the paper(?) she worked at, but this didn't help when they showed the boyfriend dressed in a similar era style. It wasn't until she was using a cell phone that I was more certain what time period it was supposed to be, and that she was meant to have unique tastes. Fast-forward to the last half hour. The house was super-interesting and very well done! However, the reasons for the main character to enter the house was a little unclear. It's pretty obvious by that point what the house is, and what waits for her inside. (It's painfully obvious why the boyfriend went in.) After they are both killed, the explanation for why all this was going on is confusing and somewhat unrealistic. Are we meant to think that the whole town got together and said, "Yeah! Let's get this mysterious bad guy's family back from Hell by killing our own kids!"? Or...was it just for random stuff that the various town citizens wanted? And why, after all that, didn't it show the villain's family being reunited...or Hell taking over earth...or...whatever was supposed to happen? At one point the main character keeps asking "Why?!", and the explanation is unsatisfactory. It seems to be little more than "Just 'cause." The villain's entire deal is what? He was a bad guy in his life, and that caused his family to get killed, and I guess him too? Is...is that what happened? What kind of bad guy was he? Gangster? Gun-runner? Drug-dealer? Underhanded canasta dealer? It's never said, which bugs me for some reason. He's just "generic evil, creepy old man bad guy". Not the devil or a demon, but...acts like one? I guess? After doing a little research, it seems that this movie is loosely based off of a comic series of the same name. This explains a LOT, as those who have read the comic may get a great deal more out of this movie than someone who just found it on Netflix randomly like me. One good thing, I guess: I'm now interested in the comic so I can fill in the holes!

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• Horrible! Sucked so bad

  Njinked2016-12-28

  I seriously wish there was a way to give negative numbers. This movie was awful. Nothing made sense. No consistency, and dragged on and on. You see the older woman from the Insidious movies and get excited thinking wow, this looks pretty good!!//NOPE! The main character although pretty to look at, was annoying. She dressed like a 50s pin up girl, drove an old car, making you wonder what year was this movie supposed to take place / yet had a smartphone on her car dashboard. The "villain" of the movie and the connections to her and the story made no sense and had no consistency. Save yourself some time and don't even think about watching this horrible excuse of a movie.

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• Half of an interesting movie

  mtabernac2016-09-14

  I really liked the premise of this film: a mysterious person/group is purchasing houses where brutal deaths have occurred and are removing the sections of the house where the incidents happen to build their own strange structure. Once all is revealed (the last half hour of the movie), things really kick into gear -- some great effects, cinematography, thrills, chills, etc. -- and reminds me a bit of some classics like "13 Ghosts" or "House on Haunted Hill." I found these parts very original and inventive. Unfortunately, getting to this point is a bit tedious. The film relies on exposition supplied by characters' dialogue, and the result is that the middle half of the film seems to be missing a plot. The tedium isn't helped by some stilted dialogue and a pretty bad performance by the lead actress. Also, the production design choices are a little confusing. The director is obviously trying to reference film noir tropes, but does this by throwing in some incongruous touches such as the costume/makeup of the main character, the car she drives and the odd idiomatic way her cop friend talks and slings back whiskey. Everything else is modern-day ,however. It just seems arbitrary and tacked on, and doesn't work. It would have been better to have just set the film in the 1950s. If not for the ending, I would not recommend this film, but those willing to sit through the slower bits (and you have to in order to understand the ending) might find the journey worthwhile.

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